


One of Those Days

by ElinorJane



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Dad Kanan, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Found Family, Hilarity Ensues, Humor, Kanan Jarrus & Hera Syndulla as Space Parents, Parental Hera Syndulla, Parental Kanan Jarrus, Slice of Life, Space Family (Star Wars: Rebels), everyone has days like this, mom Hera, so why not the Ghost crew?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:22:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28612005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElinorJane/pseuds/ElinorJane
Summary: Mondays are Mondays the world over...even in a galaxy far, far away. :-) I started writing this fic on a whim, and watched in gleeful amusement as the hilarity spilled out! This chaos takes place somewhere in between S1 episodes “Idiot’s Array” and “Vision of Hope”.
Relationships: C1-10P | Chopper & Hera Syndulla, Ezra Bridger & Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios, Ezra Bridger & Hera Syndulla, Ezra Bridger & Kanan Jarrus, Ezra Bridger & Sabine Wren, Hera Syndulla & Sabine Wren, Kanan Jarrus & Sabine Wren, Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Comments: 24
Kudos: 66





	1. One of Those Days, Part 1

The chaos had started the morning of three very critical missions.

Well, actually, it had started the night before as the crew _planned_ those critical missions. Ezra had raised a fuss about being assigned to supply run with Zeb (again) rather than the data steal-and-recon job Kanan and Sabine had. Zeb had explained he wasn’t any happier about the supply run arrangement than Ezra; Sabine told them both to shut up and do their jobs; and that’s when Hera had to break up the impending fight.

“Look,” she said in her tone that allowed for no further complaining, “We’re low on supplies, the ship needs maintenance, and both of Fulcrum’s missions are time-sensitive. These team arrangements will help us get everything done in a timely manner. Clear?”

Despondent mutters answered this, and Kanan had added, “You’ll get another chance, kid.”

“All right,” Hera had said. “Everyone to bed early; we’ve got a full day tomorrow.”

And everyone except herself had gone to bed early. There really was a lot of ship maintenance to do, and it couldn’t hurt to get a head start. Or make half a cup of caf for a energy boost.

She regretted that last choice when she woke at 0400 after a restless night and couldn’t get back to sleep. And after an hour of tossing and turning, she gave up and decided to get a second head start on the day’s work.

Somebody else apparently had the same idea; she heard water running as she approached the galley. Sabine stood at the sink, holding a cup under the faucet with shaking hands. In fact, she was visibly shivering, and when she turned to see who else had entered, Hera saw the girl’s hair was sweaty, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes bright with fever.

“I just need water,” Sabine said hoarsely.

Hera marched to drawer where they kept various odds and ends and fished out the thermometer. “You’re sick.”

“It’s not bad!” Sabine insisted. “I’ve worked through worse!”

“I’m sure. Lift your arm.”

Sabine huffed and obeyed, standing rigid with displeasure while the thermometer took her temperature.

“103.4,” Hera announced. “You’re going back to bed, and staying there for the day.”

Sabine argued the point for about a minute, but Hera remained firm. She found the fever reducers and painkillers in another cabinet, added a few drops of liquid herbal supplement to Sabine’s water, and sent her back to bed. Afterwards, she made herself a cup of caf and sat at the galley table, thinking over the plans—and the required change of plans. After some thought, she sighed and made another cup of caf; it was 0530 now, and the sooner Kanan knew about this development, the better.

He was sound asleep when she entered his cabin; she set down the cup on the table and gently shook his shoulder. “Kanan?”

After a moment, he stirred and half turned. “Mmph?”

“Sabine’s sick. She won’t be joining you on the mission.”

Kanan groaned and pushed himself up upright. “How bad is she?”

“Could be worse, but she didn’t argue much when I told her to stay in bed.” Hera sat on the edge of the bunk and handed him the cup of caf. “Can you handle the data retrieval and recon yourself?”

Kanan was silent for a few minutes. “Not alone, not both missions,” he said at last. “I’d better take Zeb. You said these jobs were time-sensitive, right?”

“Yeah. Recon can wait, if it has to, but the data has to be gathered and sent off-world tonight.”

“Think we’d better drop the recon, then,” Kanan said. “If the data is that important, our energy and backup plans need to go there. Also, I’ve got a weird feeling about this one.”

“Great,” Hera muttered.

“Didn’t say ‘bad’,” Kanan added with a touch of amusement. “Just ‘weird.’”

“Well, I’ll get Zeb and tell him the change of plans.”

Zeb was not happy at being wakened this early, nor was he happy about the change in plans, nor that they came on such short notice. (Ezra was also displeased when he heard Zeb was to accompany Kanan instead of himself.) But in spite of grumbling and snarky comments, Zeb was finally ready, and he and Kanan departed in the _Phantom_ at 0730. Hera, meanwhile, had created a plan B for the other jobs.

“Chopper, run a diagnostic scan on every part of the ship: computers, life support, engine, internal comm, the whole works,” Hera said. “Then start fixing what you can, and I’ll join you when I get back.” She turned to Ezra and said, “Looks like you and I are going shopping.”

***

There was a reason Hera didn’t often visit Lothal’s more populated centers. Well, she _was_ the getaway pilot on missions, but besides that—Twi’leks were rare on Lothal. Rare enough to attract attention from the simply curious and the more…leering types. But nobody caused any trouble, and she kept her manner crisp, business-like, and busy. She had no intention of falling behind schedule, and she and Ezra were through each market stall in record time. It wasn’t until she finished buying a new stock of meds that she turned and discovered Ezra was missing.

The boxes he’d been carrying were by her feet; no doubt, he’d seen something he wanted to investigate and thought he could take off without a word. Hera sighed, gathered the abandoned supplies, and set off for the edge of town, hoping the kid would stay out of trouble until she could call his comm.

Not two seconds later, Ezra marched out of an alley just ahead, mopping a bleeding nose with his sleeve and sporting bruises on his face. He looked furious instead of scared or hurt, and he halted abruptly when he saw Hera in front of him.

“Are you all right?” she asked, quickly setting down the boxes and bags. “Did someone jump you?”

“Not exactly,” Ezra muttered.

“Then what ‘exactly’ happened?” Hera asked. She took hold of his shoulders and studied his face: bloody nose, split lips, green and purple bruises on both cheeks, and a massive shiner on his right eye. And a welt on his neck as if someone had grabbed him there. “Tell me the truth.”

Ezra squirmed, and Hera let go of him and set her hands on her hips. “I, uh…well, this sleemo was staring at you, and he finally turned to his friend and called you a…” he grimaced. “Then I told him to back off, and he said, ‘Make me,’ and…um…”

“You started a fight,” Hera said flatly.

“Well, who does he think he is, calling you—”

“I didn’t hear it, Ezra.”

“Not the point, okay! He doesn’t get to insult you like that.” The last two words turned oddly nasal as Ezra pinched his nose to stop the sudden blood flow.

Hera sighed. “All right, let’s get you home. Pick up what you can carry.”

Ezra obeyed, announcing with satisfaction (and that pinched tone), “Pretty sure he won’t do it again, though. He’ll either forget the whole thing once he wakes up, or he’ll remember enough not make that mistake a second time.”

Hera didn’t answer, and Ezra fell silent.

“Sabine! We’re home!” Hera called over her shoulder as they boarded the _Ghost_ and she steered Ezra to the galley. There was no response from the cabins; Sabine was probably asleep, and Hera made a mental note to check on her after cleaning Ezra up. She found an ice pack, and he held it to his eye as she doused a rag and scrubbed at the cuts and dried blood on his face. He submitted to the treatment with a dejected expression.

“I’m not mad at you, Ezra,” Hera said gently. “It’s just that we have enough on our hands fighting the Empire without you picking fights with rude citizens. I know you meant well,” she said, and Ezra brightened a little, “and it was kind of you. Sounds like you gave out as good as you got,” she added with a smile.

He smirked. “Yeah, I did.”

“All right, are you hurt anywhere else?”

Ezra held out a swollen wrist, and Hera turned back to the medicine cabinet to find gauze to wrap it. Then they unpacked and put away the supplies, and Hera went to check on Sabine.

Only Sabine wasn’t in her cabin. The blankets were rumpled, as though she’d been there shortly before, but the room was deserted. Hera checked the fresher, the galley, the common room, and finally, Sabine’s cabin again, just in case they’d missed each other. “Sabine?”

“She’s in here!” Ezra called. From the cockpit. Though Hera distinctly remembered telling the girl to stay in bed. She hurried to the cockpit and found Sabine lying halfway inside a maintenance duct, hard at work with various other tools and machine parts scattered at her feet.

“Sabine Wren!”

“I’m not overdoing it, okay?” Sabine scooted out of the duct and sat up, looking affronted, exhausted, and flustered all at the same time. Her face was still flushed and was now smudged with grease. “I rested—like you said—and then decided to help Chopper. Thought you’d appreciate it.”

“I appreciate the thought, yes, but I told you to stay in bed for the day.”

“And I told you, I’m not that sick—”

“But you could get worse, and you _will_ , if you don’t rest properly,” Hera said firmly. “Also, I don’t want an epidemic aboard my ship, so back to bed, young lady. I’ll check your temperature again in a few minutes.”

Sabine groaned in disgust and chucked her wrench aside. As she stood up, she noticed Ezra’s bruised face and halted. “Did you run into a wall?”

“Nope, into an idiot who insulted Hera.”

“Tell me you beat him.”

(Hera sighed.)

“Gave him as good as I got,” Ezra declared.

“Nice.” Sabine nodded at him and sauntered back to her cabin.

Chopper buzzed a rude threat about whoever decided to talk like that about his captain within thirty yards of his taser—

“That’s enough, Chopper,” Hera said. “Did you run the diagnostics?”

Chopper bleeped.

“ _All_ of them?”

An indignant buzz.

“All right, just checking. Ezra, check the wiring on the—”

Chopper bleeped and buzzed an addendum to his report.

“The cooling system is offline?” Hera dashed to the computer panel and pulled up the diagnostic; then she pulled up the system control panel and hit the orange ‘reset’ button. And waited for it to do its job and then turn blue.

Some mechanism deep within the ship clicked once; the button flickered and remained orange.

Hera groaned and straightened. “Chopper, did you plug in and try to fix it remotely?”

A single whomp.

_“Then do it!”_

***

The next half hour found Hera lying on her back in the cooling systems repair duct and checking, unplugging, and reconnecting wires. The ship grew warmer by the minute. Sabine finally appeared at the door, disheveled in sleep shirt and shorts, demanding, “Is it hot in here to _anyone_ else?”

“Working on it, Sabine.”

“And you’re sure you don’t need my help?”

“I’m sure,” Hera said firmly. “Go back to bed.”

She pulled out of the duct only when she was about to suffocate from the heat. She called Ezra’s comm and ordered him to do what ship maintenance he could handle; then she climbed into the engine room (hotter than Ryloth’s deserts in summer) and spent the next half-hour checking the cooling unit’s filters and connection to its engine. Then she examined the cooling unit itself. And discovered the problem. Which turned out to be a part that needed replacing.

One that would be incredibly difficult to find on Lothal.

Hera climbed out of the engine room, and sank down against the wall, rubbing sweat off her forehead with her sleeve. They could check the black market before going off-world—or maybe Ezra knew of a few places to hunt for a replacement. She activated her comm. 

“Ezra!”

No answer.

“Ezra, come down here!”

Still no answer.

Hera sighed, pulled herself to her feet, and went in search of the kid.

She found him in the cockpit, fighting with Chopper. Literally fighting: Ezra shouted threats and insults at the droid, hurling tools without pause, and sometimes risking that taser to land a good swat. Chopper wheeled after Ezra like a maniac, buzzing at the top of his mechanical voice, brandishing his taser, and blurting threats and insults in binary.

“Stop it, both of you!” Hera yelled. Chopper rammed into Ezra, knocking him to the ground, and then shot backwards as Ezra flung a screwdriver in his direction. The tool missed Chopper, but it hit a control panel with a loud crack. “I said _stop it_!” Hera grabbed Ezra’s elbow and pulled him to his feet.

“Chopper attacked me, Hera! He deserves a restraining bolt!” 

Chopper buzzed loudly with the news that that _loth-rat_ had _insulted_ him, called him a _binary droid_ , and had therefore _started the fight himself_.

“I don’t care who started the fight,” Hera said. “You both know better than to behave like this, and I need my ship repaired.”

“I’m trying!” Ezra shot a glare at the droid. “I’m trying, but this short-circuited—”

“Save it, Ezr--!”

Chopper screamed before Hera could finish, shot forward, and zapped Ezra. Ezra yelped and aimed a kick at the droid that struck home: Chopper toppled over and hit the floor with a clang and a stunned beep.

Ezra shouted in triumph, but Hera shoved him toward the door and knelt to help Chopper up. “Knock it off, both of you! If you can’t get along, you each work in separate rooms. Got it?”

“Fine with me!” Ezra snapped. Chopper, upright once more, whirled his dome in fury and blatted his uncensored opinions.

“Chopper, I will power you off if you don’t stop this behavior, _right now_. Both of you, stay apart for the rest of the day!” She drew a breath and spoke in a calmer tone. “Ezra, stay here and check that panel where the screwdriver landed. If I’m not mistaken, something broke.”

Ezra marched toward the control panel, and Chopper laughed and waved a taunting arm.

“Uh-uh, you’re not off the hook, Chopper. Go check the automatic doors and cabin lights and kitchen appliances, make sure everything works—”

Chopper whomped a rude protest.

“Yes, it’s mundane, but it needs to be done. Now get to it!”

Chopper rolled away, grumbling.

Hera sighed and sank into the pilot’s seat. It was getting hotter by the minute, and her flight suit was already soaked with sweat.

“Uh, Hera?” Ezra said. “I can’t tell if the whole computer is broken or just the screen.”

Hera stood and went to look at the control panel. The screen bore a spiderweb of cracks, and the monitor flickered white. She sighed again and mentally added this to the list of problems to fix. “Maybe you’ll think twice before throwing screwdrivers aboard my ship.”

“I’m sorry, Hera,” Ezra mumbled.

She glanced at the kid; his face was flushed, his hair stuck out in all directions, and sweat ran down his face in streams. She softened a little and said quietly, “It’s okay. Just don’t do it again. Now put on some cooler clothes and go clean the fresher— _thoroughly_. And stay out of Chopper’s way!” she called over her shoulder as Ezra stumped away. She sank into the pilot’s chair and rubbed more sweat off her face. Then she activated her comm. “Chopper, when you’re finished with that work, come back here and de-bug the navi-computer. Also run a diagnostic on this panel.”

A series of surly beeps replied that he couldn’t do any of that because Ezra was in the cockpit, and did she remember that she’d said--?

“I sent Ezra to work in other parts of the ship, Chopper. Finish your jobs, and then get back here.”

It was really hot on board.

***

Two hours later, and she had completed only a quarter of the required maintenance. The heat was thick and heavy, made it hard to think and work. Chopper took his slow, sweet time fixing and scanning anything, and finally rolled out of the room, announcing that he was too hot to do any more work today. Hera pointed out that he was a droid and couldn’t suffer from this heat. Chopper ignored this logic and the door slid shut behind him.

On the other hand, the cockpit was blissfully silent. That is, until the comm on the dashboard beeped and Kanan’s voice came through. “Spectre-1 to _Ghost_. Do you read?”

Hera activated her end of the comm. “I read you, Spectre-1. How’s the mission going?”

“Finished!” Kanan said, and Hera straightened in surprise. “Didn’t go off entirely as planned—we were spotted as soon as we approached the complex, and Zeb had to take out Stormtroopers at every turn.” In the background, Hera heard Zeb’s deep, satisfied chuckle. “But we got out with the data tapes, and we’re on our way back.”

“Well, that’s good, Spectre-1.”

“We may have to head out into hyperspace to throw the Empire off our trail—we got away a little too easily.”

“No can do, Spectre-1. The cooling system is offline and needs a part replaced. We can’t risk going into space, not in the _Ghost_ , and we’ll have to lay low somewhere on Lothal. Luckily, I got enough supplies to last us for a while.”

“The—cooling system is _offline_?” Kanan sounded incredulous, and in the background, Zeb muttered, “Well, that’s just great.”

“Not sure how it happened, but yes, it’s broken. On that note, I’ll need help with maintenance when you get back.”

“Copy that. How’s Spectre-5?”

“She’s…” Hera groaned. “I don’t know, actually. I forgot to check her temperature. And I need to figure out how to get the data to Fulcrum now that we’re stuck on-world.”

“Copy that. We’ll be home soon. Spectre-1 out.”

Hera switched off the comm and sat for a minute in silence. Then she pushed herself to her feet and went to check on Sabine.

Sabine was fast asleep with one arm thrown above her head, her brightly colored hair disheveled, and her face still flushed. Which could be either from the heat or from her fever. But since she was asleep—finally—Hera decided to leave her alone for now and check again in another hour. She headed to the galley get a cool drink and to sit for a minute. And then recreate some semblance of order in her plans and schedule.

This was unsuccessful; she really had no idea how to get all the necessary maintenance done, and if the Empire was on their trail… She sighed and headed back to the cockpit; no sense delaying work, and she had an idea for how to pass on the data tapes.

She’d worked only five minutes, it seemed, when she heard the roar of the _Phantom_ and heard the hiss and thud as it docked. The _Ghost_ , quiet as a tomb only moments before, rang with pelting feet, whooshing doors, and Ezra’s shout of, “Kanan’s home!” Chopper also blared some greeting (not a welcoming one), and Hera mentally sighed, preparing to break up another fight.

“Whoa, whoa, one at a time!” Kanan called from the common room, a command that made no impression on the rest of the crew. The cacophony grew louder, and Hera realized Kanan was making his way to the cockpit, despite being mobbed by the kids (with Zeb’s deep laugh in the background). Finally, as he neared the door, Kanan’s voice grew most prominent: “All right, Ezra, go help Chopper with whatever repairs—”

“Um, well,” Ezra said, “Actually, I’m supposed to stay away from Chopper for the rest of the day.”

“Oh-ho, and do you want to explain why?”

“Not really, no.”

Hera punched the button to open the cockpit doors (the noise grew suddenly louder), and Kanan quickly entered, calling over his shoulder, “Go back to bed, Sabine!”

“Oh, not you too!” Sabine grumbled, but Hera shut the door before they could hear any further complaints.

Kanan sighed and sat in the co-pilot’s chair. A second later, he said, “Phew, you weren’t kidding about the broken cooling.”

"Get used to it,” Hera said grimly. “Until we find that replacement part. And Fulcrum’s mission has to come first.”

Kanan reached into his pocket, pulled out two small discs and expertly tossed each one to Hera. “Anything else go wrong on your end?”

“No,” Hera said calmly, stowing the discs in a strongbox disguised as a case of ration bars. “A _lot_ of things went wrong.”

“Uh-oh. What happened?”

Hera sat back and wiped sweat off her forehead. “Well, Ezra picked a fight with someone who apparently insulted me while we were on our supply run. Pretty sure he gets that instinct from you”—with a wry smile—“and then he picked a fight with Chopper, which is why they’ll stay apart for the rest of the day. And it’s why that panel is broken”—gesturing with her chin, and Kanan swiveled his chair towards it to take a look. “I spent an hour fighting with the cooling system, which means I’m now behind on the rest of maintenance.”

“Chopper didn’t help?” Kanan asked, without looking up from the panel.

“Oh, he did—until he decided the heat was too much for him.” Kanan scoffed and shook his head, and Hera continued, “Or it may have been his idea of revenge, since I punished both him and Ezra for the fight. But I did get the shopping done, and stocked up on meds in case Sabine’s cold spreads. She’s still convinced she can work, though; found her in a repair duct when Ezra and I got home.”

“Pretty sure she gets that from you,” Kanan remarked in a smug tone.

“Yes, well, anyway, since we can’t go into space, I’ll have to take the _Phantom_ and meet Fulcrum on a nearby world. And contact Fulcrum first—” she groaned; she should have already done that, since the change was on such short notice. She switched on the comm. “Chopper, prep the _Phantom_ ; you and I are heading out shortly.” Displeased beeps and buzzes answered this, and Hera quickly switched off the comm. She stood up and sighed, “Once Chopper and I leave, take the _Ghost_ to the circle mountains; we’ll meet you there when our mission is done.” She turned to leave, but halted and stared at the door, brows furrowed.

“What is it?” Kanan asked.

“I’m forgetting something. I have the discs…” she muttered, clutching the box; “and I told Chopper to prep the _Phantom_ …Ezra and Chopper know to stay apart, Sabine knows to stay in bed…” She half-turned toward Kanan and cocked an eyebrow in mock-seriousness. “Did Zeb misbehave?”

Kanan laughed. “No. Though I can’t promise anything now, not with this heat.” He tipped his head towards the door and said, “Get going. Something tells me you’ve got the easy job.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The broken cooling system was inspired by the frequent malfunctioning of our own air conditioner (before we replaced it, at any rate)!


	2. One of Those Days, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chaos continues!

After setting down the _Ghost_ near a ring of mountains, Kanan sat for a few minutes, looking over the list of leftover maintenance that Hera had dropped into his hands right before her take-off. And then snatched back and read over one more time, because she was still convinced she’d forgotten something. Hera did not normally forget things—or even think that she had. And after the kind of day she’d had, a lesser being would be blowing smoke out of the ears. As such, the least he could do was salvage what was left of the day—in fact, the beginnings of a very good plan came to mind as he noticed one large task near the end of the list. He called Ezra and Zeb on the comm.

Zeb appeared in the cockpit a moment later (grumbling about the heat) and Ezra right behind him (explaining that he had no right to complain when he’d been aboard for only ten minutes).

“All right, here’s the plan,” Kanan said. “Zeb, you and Ezra take the speeders and look for this replacement part for the cooling system”—handing Zeb a data pad with the file open—“or at least a good place to buy one.”

“What?” Ezra demanded, and Zeb began, “But that—”

“I want the cooling system fixed by the time Hera gets home. It will be a nice surprise.” In fact, if they found the missing part and he worked on maintenance—they could easily finish the day’s work and take a load off of Hera’s mind.

Ezra peered over Zeb’s arm. “There’s no way we’ll find that in a market—”

“Yeah, I don’t think we’ll find a part like this on _Lothal_ ,” Zeb said, frowning at the file.

“You won’t know until you look, will you?” Kanan insisted. “Now head out.”

Ezra and Zeb obeyed. Taking their time, of course, and complaining about the heat, protesting the mission, and prophesying its failure long before they mounted their speeders. Kanan ignored every word and cheerfully waved them off. He looked forward to working aboard a quiet ship. Once the buzz of speeders faded into the distance, he went back inside—and decided to leave the boarding ramp down to let fresh air circulate. He also opened the rest of the doors on board to cool the place off.

Just as he reached the cockpit to pull up the diagnostics reports, his comm whistled, and Hera’s voice came through. “Spectre-2 to Spectre-1—do you copy?”

He switched on the comm. “I read you.”

“Another change of plans.” (Kanan stifled a groan.) “Fulcrum won’t meet me until tomorrow. An extra precaution, I guess—or Fulcrum couldn’t get away on such short notice. So once we reach the drop-off world, we’re staying there tonight.”

“Copy that. We’ll be fine. And I’m about to start work on maintenance.”

“Good. Oh, and I forgot to take Spectre-5’s temperature before I left. Will you--?”

“I’ll take care of it,” Kanan said.

“And keep her in bed, if you have to tie her dow—”

“I’ve got it, captain. Don’t worry,” he said with a smile. “Spectre-1 out.” He switched the comm off and headed for Sabine’s cabin.

There was no answer when he knocked, but odd, choking noises came from inside. Kanan quickly opened the door and was knocked woozy by hot paint fumes. Sabine knelt in the middle of the floor, hunched over a bucket and throwing up. Kanan dropped to his knees beside her and patted her back. “Whoa. You okay?”

Sabine slowly sat up. “Yeah.” She glanced at the floor by the wall; Kanan followed her gaze and saw air brushes scattered around, and on the wall, a half-finished depiction of some class of starfighter. The smell of paint was sharp and fresh.

“Thought I warned you about paint fumes—”

Sabine held up a shaking finger and shot him a dangerous glare. “Do _not_ say ‘I told you so’.”

“Okay. Then I thought Hera told you to stay in bed.”

“Can’t sleep. It’s too hot.”

Right. Her bunk was near the ceiling, where the temperature was always higher. Kanan took her arm and gently pulled her to her feet. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

They were in the hall when Sabine suddenly twisted her arm out of his hand and sprinted towards the fresher. Kanan heard the sounds of her throwing up again. As he came to the fresher door, Sabine half-straightened and gasped out, “Still-don’t-want-to-hear-it!”

“Wasn’t going to say it,” Kanan replied. “I’ll get you some water.”

When he returned with a glass (and with fever pills and nausea pills), Sabine was slumped against the wall, head tipped back, and eyes closed. She stirred only when Kanan sat down beside her and handed her the glass. She sipped the water and said shakily, “Paint fumes don’t normally…”

“Yeah, I know. It’s the heat, and your sickness.”

Sabine sighed. “I guess Hera ordered you strap me in bed.”

“Something like that. Let’s take your temperature first.”

The result was 101.2. Sabine informed him it had been higher at 0500 that morning, so the fever was coming down. Kanan handed her the fever and nausea pills, but Sabine merely glanced at them.

“I’d…better stick to water for now.”

She didn’t look like she could hold anything else down. “Let’s get you in bed.”

He took her to his cabin; it was a fraction cooler inside, and Sabine dropped gratefully on the bottom bunk and curled up under his blanket. Kanan put the pills in a small bowl near the glass of water. “I’ll check on you in a few minutes. And if you’re going to draw instead of resting, stick to sketchbook and pencils. Deal?”

She gave him a shaky smile. “Deal.”

He headed back to Sabine’s cabin, collected her sketchbook and pencils and gave them to her, and cleaned out the defiled bucket. Though he’d been aboard scarcely half-an-hour, the heat was unbearable. He chucked off his armor and then threw himself into maintenance work, fixing minor bugs, running diagnostics on the systems Chopper had left undone, strengthening mechanisms. He paused now and then to check on Sabine; she stayed in bed, but also stayed awake, propped up on pillows and scribbling in her sketchbook. He finally coaxed her to take the fever and nausea pills.

On his way back to the cockpit, he heard a skittering noise, like something with claws had scrambled into Hera’s cabin. He paused, listened hard, and then stepped into her cabin and switched on the light.

A piercing yowl rang through air; Kanan shouted and stumbled back against the door frame as a blur of fur shot out the cabin, down the hallway, and vanished somewhere in the common room. A second later, his cabin door whooshed open, and Sabine demanded. “Kanan, what was that?”

“A Loth-cat, I think.” Kanan hurried down the hall.

“How’d it get aboard?”

“Ah,” he groaned, “I left the boarding ramp down.” He reached the common room, switched on every light, and looked around—but nothing yowled or moved. The room looked normal. “It’s just a Loth-cat; could be worse.”

“Could be better,” Sabine returned. “You know how they get when they’re mad. And being trapped on a ship will definit—”

“Then let’s find it before it does any damage!”

But a quick search of the room availed them nothing, nor did they find it in the galley. Kanan headed for the cargo hold, remarking, “Maybe it went back outside.” Sabine followed him.

Just as he reached the railing in the cargo hold, movement below caught his eye. He saw the cat, crouched at the bottom of the stairs, tail twitching—but before he could react, the cat growled, scrambled up the stairwell, across the balcony, and back down the corridor (Sabine flattened against the doorframe with a yelp). They heard a metallic thump, like the sound Ezra made when he climbed into the ventilation shafts, the scratching of claws on metal, and an odd, echoing patter in the ducts.

“Oh, that’s just great.” Kanan glared at the ceiling and then down the boarding ramp. The opening to freedom was a solid seven feet wide, impossible to miss. So of course, the cat had fled in the opposite direction.

“I don’t see the problem,” Sabine said. “Either the heat will drive it down, or it’ll suffocate up there.” The pattering grew louder as the cat scrambled through the duct overhead.

Kanan and Sabine looked at each other. Sabine shrugged. “Either way, problem solved."

“We can’t let it suffocate in the vents,” Kanan said wearily.

“Huh.” Sabine tipped her head and regarded him curiously. “Never thought you had a soft spot for animals.”

“I don’t.” He turned on his heel and headed back to the main rooms. “But the last thing we need is a dead Loth-cat in the ceiling.”

A reverberating yowl rang through the ducts, distant, yet oddly amplified. Sabine jumped and shouted a curse that Kanan would have rebuked her for, if he’d not been so startled himself. The noise died away.

“It’s definitely not dead yet!”

“I know, I know. Come on!”

***

Being hunted and shot at by the Empire was turning out to be the least difficult part of his day. Then again, that was a normal part of his life. It was certainly not normal to be thumping on the overhead ducts with a pole, soaked with sweat, stifling in the heat, acutely aware of the time ticking away—and held hostage by a Loth-cat.

He and Sabine had tried calling the cat down; then Sabine stuck her head in a few of the vents to find the animal. She’d spotted it once, but it had whisked away before she could grab it. Then they’d found poles and banged on the vents to drive the cat down the shafts and into the main rooms. And so far, they’d succeeded in enraging the animal, for the cat screeched with each metallic clang and skittered away from the noise—but always into a different vent and never down to the ground.

Also, Sabine had started coughing, and was pointedly ignoring it.

“Ugh!” she groaned, glaring at the roof. “Maybe I could smoke the thing out.”

“And maybe that would kill it,” Kanan said. “I really don’t want a dead Loth-cat in the ceiling.” He looked at the ducts once more, and then heaved a sigh and threw his pole on the ground. “I guess it’ll come down when it’s ready. It doesn’t seem to be suffering up there.” They heard scratching and scrambling as the creature ran through the overhead duct. “I’m getting back to work.”

Sabine pressed her lips together and jammed her pole into the ceiling again, and the cat yowled in the distance. Kanan sighed again and headed back to the cockpit, retaining enough presence of mind shut the doors.

After two hours of work (during which he discarded his sweater), he’d hardly made a dent in the repairs. It was too hot to think straight, and Sabine kept chasing the cat. So as he wrestled with stuck bolts, greasy machinery, and the diagnostic screen (which abruptly went black and refused to reboot), he heard the distant banging of the pole and the responding meows of fury.

A noise that filtered down through the ducts loud and clear.

A third hour found him lying under a control panel in the cockpit, fighting with a wire that refused to re-attach and struggling to grasp the remains of his sanity. And he only vaguely realized that Sabine had quit banging on the ducts, though the cat-melodies persisted.

The cockpit doors whooshed open, and Sabine marched in and hurled her pole on the ground with a clang. She sank into her chair and sighed. “You think Ezra can fish it out when he and Zeb get back?”

“Ezra…” Kanan sat up so quickly he hit his head on the panel. “Ow!” Ezra and Zeb had never checked in to report. He pulled out his comm. “Spectre-1 to Spectre-4. Come in.”

No answer.

“Spectre-1 to Spectre-4— _do you copy?_ ”

The comm crackled, and Kanan heard Ezra’s voice insisting, “Yeah, and I told _you_ —” followed by Zeb’s growl, “Shut up, Kanan’s calling.” Then Zeb’s voice, louder and focused on the comm. “Spectre-4 here. What do you need, Spectre-1?”

“I _needed_ you to check in, hours ago. What went wrong?”

Zeb chuckled nervously. “Heh, what makes you think anything’s wrong?”

Kanan spoke slowly and—he hoped—patiently. “The fact that you haven’t checked in for almost three hours.”

“Yeah, well, we’re busy looking for a market to find replacement parts.”

“Where are you?”

“Um…”

Sabine raised her eyebrows, and Kanan buried his face in his hand. “You’re lost, aren’t you?”

“We’re not lost,” Ezra’s voice piped up. “I can navigate us, but _Zeb_ won’t _listen_ to me.”

“Because you don’t know where you’re going!” Zeb snapped before addressing Kanan again. “Yeah, we’re sort of lost.” A pause. “Okay, completely lost. Sorry, Spectre-1.”

“Tell me you at least found a market where we can shop for parts.”

Silence. “We, uh…haven’t made it to market.”

Kanan lost all patience. “You’ve been wandering in circles for _three hours_?”

“No!” Ezra shouted into the comm.

“Shut up, kid, and let me handle this!”

“No, both of you shut up and listen to me!” He paused and drew a long breath to calm himself. “Okay, what landmarks can you see?”

“Um…” (Kanan could picture Zeb scratching his head.) “Well, those funny-shaped mountains—rocks—whatever they are. Three of them to west.” A pause. “That’s all I can see.”

“We’re not lost,” Ezra muttered.

“Okay, stay put. I’ll come find you in the _Ghost_. Call me when you see us overhead. Spectre-1 out.”

As Kanan switched off the comm, the cat yowled again, a drawn-out miaow of fury that lasted for seven seconds.

“We have got to get that cat out of the roof,” Sabine said.

Kanan sighed. “We’ve got to find Ezra and Zeb first.”

***

Two minutes later, the _Ghost_ skimmed over the countryside, and the cat howled its displeasure every few seconds. The meows came from the same general place, as if the cat had parked in one spot and decided to scream its opinion on the situation.

An instinct Kanan could understand.

They had circled multiple three-mountain clusters before the comm beeped and Zeb’s voice growled through: “I can see you, Spectre-1.”

“Copy that. On our way down.”

The second the _Ghost_ landed, Kanan and Sabine sprinted for the cargo hold, and Kanan lowered the ramp. They were greeted by the sight of Ezra (waving cheerfully) and Zeb (hunched over in annoyance) against the late afternoon glare. “Ezra, get up here.” Kanan tipped his head toward the interior of the ship. Sabine appeared beside him, arms crossed—a stance that would have looked far more impressive if she wasn’t barefoot in pajamas.

“A Loth-cat is stuck in the ceiling vents,” she announced, “and we can’t get it down, so it’s up to you, kid.”

“What?” Ezra halted halfway up the boarding ramp and looked at her as though she’d completely lost her mind. “How did--?”

Zeb let out a chuckle as he brushed past them both.

“Doesn’t matter. Loth-cat. In the ceiling.” Sabine jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Get it out.” She continued as they all trudged to the common room, “And it runs all through the vents, and it meows every few minutes, and the ducts send the noise everywhere, and—Zeb!” The Lasat had begun to snigger. “It’s not funny!”

“Sounds funny!”

“You didn’t have to listen to the stupid thing yowling for the last two hours, and not be able to do a thing about it because Kanan said ‘no dead Loth-cats in the ceiling’”—

Zeb burst out laughing and slapped his knee. “ ‘No dead Loth-cats in the ceiling’! Wait ‘till Hera hears about that! Think she’ll add it to the ship’s rules?”

“She won’t.” Kanan crossed his arms and lowered his eyebrows. The gesture failed to make an impact, and Zeb kept laughing. “Because she won’t hear about it, and Ezra will get that thing out of the ducts. Right, Ezra?”—turning to the kid, and hoping his glare would make more of an impression.

“Sure. I’ll get food for it.” And he sprinted toward the galley as Kanan resisted the urge to bash his head against the wall. A simple solution he or Sabine really should have thought of.

“Pretty sure it feeds on sentient misery,” Sabine snapped. Zeb guffawed again; the cat screamed at this burst of noise, and they all heard scampering paws just overhead. Zeb laughed so hard that he sagged against the door frame, wiping away tears of mirth, and laughed so loudly that Kanan could hardly hear Sabine yelling some protest. Kanan managed to raise his voice above the noise and shouted, “Hey! Everyone quiet!!”

Everyone fell abruptly silent. The cat gave a single meow. Zeb sniggered again. Sabine dropped onto the couch with a thump.

Before Kanan could start a lecture, Ezra trotted back with a bowl of milk and a piece of leftover meat. “Okay, I’ll get the cat down, but the rest of you, get out of here. Especially you, Zeb.”

“Why?” Zeb demanded. “I want to see this!”

“It won’t come down if it’s scared or mad!” Ezra said.

Kanan tipped his head toward the cockpit. “Do as he says.”

The other two obeyed. Sabine called over her shoulder, “And once you coax it down, I’ll shoot it.”

“Sabine!” Ezra looked genuinely offended.

“All right, all right, come on!” Kanan herded the other two toward the cockpit and shut the hall door, leaving Ezra alone in the common room. Sabine dropped onto her chair with a huff, but Zeb halted just inside the door and rubbed the back of his head.

“Kanan,” he said in a low voice, “Sorry about the delay…and getting lost. And not finding that machine part.”

“It’s okay.” Kanan sank down in the copilot’s seat. “I guess we’ll try again tomorrow. Hera won’t be back until then.” After a pause, he swiveled to face Sabine and asked with a pointed look, “How’s your fever?”

“Fine,” Sabine muttered.

Kanan tipped his head toward the cabins, and Sabine sighed, got up, and went without arguing. Zeb also headed to the cabins, muttering something about needing a shower, leaving Kanan alone in the cockpit.

Kanan leaned his head back against the seat and sighed. So much for his wonderful repair ideas. Maybe they could all at least get the maintenance finished by the time Hera came home. Though he could really use a nap (or a cold shower—or both), he pulled up the diagnostics reports and started work on the jobs left to be done.

Presently, a faint meow caught his attention—a normal sounding mew, not amplified by the air ducts. He quickly got up and went to the common room.

Ezra sat cross-legged in a corner, the empty milk dish by his knee and a purring bundle of fur in his lap. He hunched over the critter, petting it gently, murmuring words of comfort—too absorbed to notice his master. Kanan shook his head with a small smile; the kid never ran from a fight, but he really did have a soft heart. He shifted, and the brush of his boot drew Ezra’s attention. Ezra looked up and whispered, “Shh!”

Kanan nodded. “Come on, let’s set it free.”

Ezra got up slowly, cradling the cat, and they went down to the cargo hold. Kanan paused at the start of the boarding ramp while Ezra marched off the ship and carefully set the cat in the long grass. He rejoined Kanan, and the two of them watched the animal bound away and disappear into the distance.

“Good work, kid,” Kanan said. Ezra turned and grinned at him, and they both went back inside.

“All right, come on,” Kanan said, “I’ve got one more thing for you to do.”

Ezra followed him to the cockpit, and Kanan nodded toward the cracked screen. He’d figured out what was wrong but hadn’t fixed it. “Any idea how that happened?”

Ezra shifted uncomfortably and said, “It…got hit with a screwdriver.”

“ ‘Got hit’?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Ezra muttered, “I was aiming for Chopper.”

Kanan raised an eyebrow. “You know that doesn’t help your case, right?”

Ezra shrugged, and Kanan said, “See if you can fix it. Check the wiring underneath.” As Ezra obeyed, Kanan sat down in the pilot’s seat and said, “Care to tell me who started the fight?”

Ezra’s voice was muffled under the panel. “Hera didn’t care.”

“I’m not Hera.”

“ _Technically_ , Chopper started it. ‘Cause he shocked me after…after…”

“After…?” Kanan prompted as the silence stretched out.

“Okay, I called him a binary droid.”

“Why?”

“It’s not wrong!”

“It’s not right, either.”

“Well…you know the way Chopper behaves.” Ezra emerged with a smudged face, sat up, and brushed damp hair off his forehead. “But I didn’t hit him first. Or do anything wrong, really.”

“Maybe not. But did that idea help?”

Ezra hesitated; then he sighed. “Okay, I get it. Also, I don’t think anything is wrong with those wires.”

“Then the problem with the panel is…?”

Ezra scratched his head. “The screen, I guess. Maybe the receptors right underneath it as well.”

Kanan tipped his head toward the supply closet. “Replacements in there.”

Ezra was deadly silent: no remark and no sound of him getting up. Kanan turned to face him and was greeted with the darkest glare the kid had inflicted on him in some time. “You knew! Again!”

Kanan laughed and turned back to his own work. “Your mess, your cleanup, kid.”

Ezra stood up and headed for the closet. “I guess Hera also told you I got in a fight at the market.”

“Yep. Anything else you’ve done I should know about?”

“Added an extra blade to my lightsaber.”

Kanan shot halfway out of the chair. “You--?”

Ezra leaned out of the closet and flashed a grin. “Just kidding.”

Kanan sat down, shaking his head with a wry smile. “Not funny, kid.”

As Ezra fitted the new screen in place, Kanan’s comm whistled, and Hera’s voice came through. “Spectre-1, where are you?”

Kanan switched on his comm. “Had to relocate—long story. I’ll explain later. What do you need?”

“I need your coordinates so I can rejoin you!”

Kanan blinked as Ezra let out a quiet cheer. “I thought—”

“Fulcrum sent an alternate contact to meet me. Probably to throw the Empire off our trail. Our business is done, so we’re heading back.”

“Copy that. Sending coordinates.” Kanan pressed a button. “It’ll be good to have you back, Spectre-2.”

***

A few minutes later, they heard the whoosh and thud as the _Phantom_ docked. Ezra chucked his tools across the floor and bolted for the airlock. Kanan followed at a slightly more respectable pace. As he approached the hallway, he heard Chopper buzzing some kind of threat, and Ezra said, “Oh, right. Am I still supposed to stay away from Chopper?”

“For now, yes,” Hera said. “Unless I hear that you’ve been more cooperative than earlier,” she added, with a glance at Kanan as he rounded the corner.

“Mostly,” Kanan said.

“Mostly?!” Ezra protested. “It wasn’t my fault we got lost!”

“Oh?” Hera asked.

Ezra scratched the back of his head. “Yee-eah, Zeb and I…heh, long story. But, I did get the Loth-cat down out of the ceiling.”

“Oh!” Hera’s eyebrows rose so high they almost disappeared into her cap, and she turned and looked pointedly at Kanan. “And do I want to know how a Loth-cat got in the ceiling?”

“No. No, you do not.”

Chopper rolled past the humans, beeping a rude remark about their ability to handle the ship while he and Hera were gone--

“That’s enough out of you, Chopper,” Hera called. “Go see what work still needs to be done, and get to it.” She suddenly ducked back inside the Phantom. “Kanan, help me with this.”

Kanan followed her (with Ezra at his elbow). It was blissfully cool inside the small ship. “And what exactly is ‘this’ ?”

Hera tugged a box toward them, a box of medium size but heavy enough that she had to drag it. Kanan grabbed one end and helped her pull it off the Phantom and into the hallway; then Hera straightened and set her hands on her hips with a smile. “Found the replacement part for the cooling unit.”

Ezra whooped, and Kanan let out a long sigh of relief. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“And if you’re not too exhausted from this heat, I’d like to get it installed now,” Hera said.

“Lead on, Captain.”

Ezra immediately volunteered to help Chopper with maintenance and also promised not to antagonize the droid. Hera called Chopper on the comm, relayed this information, and gave him strict commands not to antagonize Ezra either. Ezra began to make some remark about Chopper’s grumpiness and disobedience, but suddenly checked himself and scampered off. Kanan hefted up the box and took it down to the cooling unit while Hera hunted for the tool kit. He set the box down with a grunt in the maintenance room (hot and steamy beyond all decency) and started unpacking the mechanical pieces. Hera appeared a moment later with the tool box.

“So,” she said, thumping the box on the floor. “‘A Loth-cat in the ceiling’. I think I need to hear this.”

Kanan sighed and ran a hand through his hair, accidentally streaking it with grease. “Well, I might have left the boarding ramp down to try and cool this place off. And then a cat got on board and climbed into the ducts, and Sabine and I couldn’t coax it down.” He grabbed a wrench and started loosening bolts with vigor, hoping a good, quick job here might make up for all the mistakes. “I’d sent Ezra and Zeb off to find this replacement part, so they weren’t here to help. I’m afraid the cat was in the vents for three hours, so we’ll have to make sure it didn’t claw out any wires.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, Hera.”

Hera, also loosening bolts, raised one eyebrow, though she looked vaguely amused. “I think you were right that I had the easy job. What else happened here?”

“Well, Sabine insisted on painting, despite the heat, and I found her throwing up from the fumes. Of course, she couldn’t hold anything down for a while, and she didn’t take the fever reducers for another hour. We spent some time chasing that cat because I thought it would suffocate in the vents—hence the rule—and when I got back to work, the diagnostic screen shut down on me. I couldn’t get it back up, so I had to manually check all systems before repairing anything. Didn’t help that the cat was yowling the whole time, and Sabine kept banging on the ducts to chase it down. Ezra and Zeb got lost—the kid was convinced he could navigate, and the big guy wouldn’t have it. Turns out, they wandered in circles for three hours before—Hera?”

Hera sagged against the side of the cooling unit, laughing harder than he had seen her laugh in a while. “I’m sorry,” she gasped, “and I’m sorry you had to deal with all that…” she couldn’t seem to continue.

“Yeah, definitely sorry,” Kanan said with mock-grumpiness. “You wouldn’t be laughing at all if you’d been the one here. Easiest part of my day was outrunning the Empire this morning.”

They glanced at each other, and they both burst into helpless laughter. The whole day was so absurd, they were both tired, and Kanan decided that weird feelings about the future could signal either a clouded path—or just one of those days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of the Loth-cat stuck in the ceiling was inspired by this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4WP0nOhKHs


	3. One of Those Days, Part 3

Kanan collapsed on the common room couch and sat back, wishing that the seats were a little softer. He and Hera had fixed the cooling unit; the air felt a bit fresher, though it would take a while for the ship to cool down. As such, Sabine was still in his cabin—one reason he’d ended up on the couch. The other was that he was too exhausted to drag himself anywhere else. He’d sent Ezra to bed early, but they’d ended up arguing for ten minutes over why the kid had to go to bed now when it was earlier than normal and when he just wasn’t tired.

He would get that kid to quit picking fights one of these days.

In the meantime, he was hoping to get a power nap. Hera had promised she wouldn’t spend too long clattering around in the cockpit and would try to be quiet when she came through.

But when the common room doors whooshed open, it wasn’t Hera’s firm, light tread he heard. Kanan didn’t move, determined to ignore whichever kid was disobeying orders to stay in bed.

“Uh, Kanan?” Zeb’s voice held a note of alarm. “That burning smell isn’t normal, right?”

Kanan sat bolt upright. “What burning smell?” He was off the couch and through the doors almost before he’d finished the question. A scorched tang permeated the hall. “Hey, Hera?” He paced up and down, sniffing the air; the smell seemed to be coming from the vents.

“What is it, love?” Hera called from the cockpit.

Kanan strode through the cockpit doors. “Run a diagnostic on the _Ghost_.”

Hera swiveled her chair to face him with a surprised expression. “I did earlier, and we fixed—”

“There’s a burning smell in the hall.”

Hera quickly stood and followed him. After drawing in a deep breath, she turned on her heel and dashed to the cockpit. “Chopper, plug in and scan the engines!”

Chopper grumbled and rolled into the middle of the room, waving his arms.

“Yes, I know you did it earlier; do it again!” Hera was throwing switches and checking panels.

“Guess she wasn’t doing normal repairs,” Zeb grinned.

Kanan slapped his friend’s shoulder. “Not fair, buddy.”

The burning smell grew stronger; at the same moment, the diagnostic screen lit up with a beep (Hera must have fixed it already). Hera inspected the screen. “Looks like that cat did claw out some wires. There’s damage to the internal comm, one of the alarm systems, targeting computers, the kitchen appliances—"

“So I was right at least once today,” Kanan remarked drily. Then he paused—he heard odd clicks and sparks from deep within the ship’s interior. The noise grew louder, machinery thudding and hissing as though something was about to blow. “Hera?”

“I hear it.” Cool as ever, she threw a few more switches and pressed a button. The hum of machinery vanished. The lights and all other power faded into darkness. Chopper gave a single whomp.

There was half-a-second of total silence. Then a shout and a yelp came from the two occupied cabins. Chopper chortled; and Zeb let out a laugh as thuds and bumps landed on the cabin doors. Sabine’s tone would have sounded sharper if it wasn’t muffled. “Hey, what gives?” Further away, Ezra called in bewilderment, “Kanan?”

Kanan sighed and wiped a hand down his face. “Let them out, Zeb.” Zeb turned away, still laughing, though he had the presence of mind to prop open the cockpit doors with an unused toolbox. Kanan joined Hera by the dashboard and gestured around the dark room. “Let me guess: all this can’t be fixed in an hour or so.”

“Nope.”

Chopper suddenly gave an outraged squeal and jerked at the power socket he was plugged into; he whirled his dome and blatted such a colorful stream of insults and opinions that Kanan winced and looked at Hera with an eyebrow raised.

“Take it easy, Chopper!” Hera grabbed a few tools off the console and hurried to her droid; she worked at the socket with the tools and quickly got him free. “Sorry, buddy.”

Chopper beeped and buzzed and rolled away without acknowledging either of them. 

Kanan sighed. “So how are you going to fix the problem with the power off?”

“I have a few tricks up my sleeve,” Hera replied lightly. “But get the kids off the ship until I fix everything.” She added in a mutter, “Last thing I want to hear is endless complaints while dealing with this.”

Kanan nodded. “Right.” 

In the background, he heard Zeb’s deep voice: “Cut it out kid, or I’m leaving you in there.”

Sabine stalked into the cockpit. “What in--!”

“That Loth-cat destroyed some interior equipment,” Kanan said. “We’re going outside until Hera can fix it.”

Sabine dropped into her seat. “That’s just great.”

“We’ll fix up a bed for you so you can rest,” Kanan said. 

Now Ezra marched into the cockpit, arms crossed. “Kanan, you said I had to—!”

“I know, I know. Come on; we’re getting off the ship so Hera can work.” He took Sabine’s arm and pulled her to her feet and gave Ezra’s shoulder a gentle shove. “Shouldn’t be long.” As he herded the kids out of the cockpit, he glanced over his shoulder, hoping that Hera would confirm this prophecy. She gave a quick nod and a smile and turned back to the dashboard.

Kanan paused, sighed quietly, and joined his best friend and said in a low voice, “I’m sorry, Hera.”

“Well, if you’re that sorry…” She gave him a mock-glare, and then her face softened. “The _Ghost_ can survive worse. Just keep the kids out of here until I get the power back on.”

“Sure you don’t need any help?”

“I’m sure. I’ll let you know when the repairs are done. If it’s just some clawed-out wires, then it should be easy to fix.”

***

The problem was not easy to fix. For one thing, she needed both hands to handle the tools; she also needed the direct spotlight from a handheld flashlight. As only one person at a time could fit in the repair ducts, she resorted to clenching the flashlight in her teeth. But when her jaw wasn’t aching from the metal cylinder, the flashlight toppled when she least expected it and wacked her on the cheek or between the eyes. Once, it slipped down her shoulder and landed on the repair duct with a clang that echoed in her ears for several minutes.

As it turned out, the cat had done quite a bit of damage through the topmost ceiling vent. Panel covers were askew, and wires dangled loose like jungle vines—and there was no telling what was wrecked in the lower vents. Probably retribution for the creature’s inadvertent imprisonment. Why Ezra liked those critters, she would never know. She needed more wires and fasteners, and she crawled out of the repair duct, hot, exhausted, and streaked with grease. The whole ship was heating up again, and she wiped her forehead with her sleeve as she sprinted to the overheads and rummaged for the necessary tools.

A hand landed on her shoulder; she yelped and spun around and saw Kanan.

“Sorry,” he said quickly. Then, “Give it a break, Hera. You’ll work yourself ragged.”

“Oddly enough, I’d rather have my ship up and running as soon as possible.” She shoved a bin back on the shelf and reach for another one; but in the dark, she misjudged where it was and knocked the box off the shelf. Kanan caught it just before it hit the floor. Hera sighed and pressed her palm to her forehead.

“We all want the ship up and running.” Kanan set the box back on the shelf. “But you’ll feel better after some sleep, and you’ll probably get more done in the morning.” He glanced around at the dark grey hall. “Can’t imagine it’s easy wrangling wires in the dark.”

“It’s not.” Hera backed out of the closet and shut the door firmly. It always irked her to quit in the middle of a job, especially a job that involved her ship. But Kanan, as always, was simply taking care of her. She leaned against the wall and sighed again. “You may be right.”

“For the second time today,” Kanan said, with a touch of smugness in his voice.

Hera sent him a glare that was lost in the darkness but certainly relieved her irritation. “Just let me clean up the cockpit.”

On her way outside, she made sure to close the cargo bay doors to prevent another Loth-cat infestation. The night air was cool and refreshing, and Hera drew a deep breath—and felt suddenly tired. She spotted the rest of the crew: Sabine was lying the grass, wrapped in a blanket and propped up on pillows. Zeb sat nearby, fiddling with a portable light and muttering. Kanan sat on a rock a little apart from the others, staring into the distance. Ezra ran back and forth through the grass, apparently not a bit tired. Hera sat down next to Kanan.

“Well, it could be worse,” she remarked suddenly. “At least we got the data and delivered it to Fulcrum.”

“Hmm.”

They stared over the dark, grassy plains for a minute or so, and Hera felt herself start to relax. Then Sabine’s voice sounded behind them. “So, are you taking a break? Or is the damage worse than we thought?”

“Both.” Hera turned to face Sabine, who still had the blanket around her shoulders. “I’ll finish the job in the morning, but unless you want to stay on the ship with the power off, we’ll be sleeping outside.”

“ _Outside?_ ” Sabine repeated.

“Come on, we’ll put the tent up,” Kanan said.

“Oh, you mean that backpack that’s too small for Ezra and me, much less two adults and a Lasat?”

“That’s the one,” Kanan declared.

Zeb set down his project and straightened. “Uh, what’s this about the tent?” he demanded. “That thing’s not big enough for all of us!”

“You got a better idea?” Kanan said.

No one answered.

“Thought not.” Kanan gave a single nod in Zeb’s direction. “Go find the tent, and we’ll set it up.”

Hera stood up. “I’ll get the supplies we’ll need.”

After hunting in the dark for a flashlight (and barking her shins on various corners), she found backpacks and filled them with ration bars, water canteens, cartons of water for washing, soap and cloths, medicines for Sabine, extra flashlights and power cells, and a portable chrono. She slung one pack on her back, slipped her arms through the straps of two others, and somehow managed to carry the rest in her arms. She dragged her cargo outside and dropped it on the grass near Kanan and Zeb, who wrestled with the canvas and rods and heatedly argued over the order of operations. She escaped before either of them could call for a third opinion and marched back to the ship and gathered sleeping bags, pillows, and extra blankets. Chopper refused to come outside, and so she left him in charge of the ship and gave instructions to bypass the primary engines and fix what he could—and also to close the cargo bay firmly once she’d left. By the time she brought her second load outside, the tent was set up and waiting, and she saw the dark figures of Ezra and Sabine inside.

As Hera set down the sleeping bags and other bedding, Zeb stared at the pile and scratched the top of his head. “How’re we gonna make all this fit?”

Ezra scrambled out of the tent and jumped to his feet. “Zeb, the tent’s not so bad. Sabine and I fit inside with room to spare.”

“Just you wait ‘till we’re all inside,” Zeb grumbled, “and this stuff too.”

“All right,” Hera said, unzipping a backpack. “Dinner and bedtime in short order.”

“We ate all the waffles in the freezer,” Ezra announced. Hera paused and looked at Kanan. 

Kanan shrugged. “They were going to go bad with the power out.”

Hera sighed and shook her head. “And all the milk too, I suppose?”

Kanan raised his hands helplessly.

“All right, never mind.” Hera rezipped the backpack. “But everyone is going to bed _now_.”

They crowded inside the tent, and Kanan and Hera dragged in the sleeping bags, pillows, blankets, and most of the backpacks. Ezra’s eyes widened as the interior space shrank, and he scrunched close to the canvas. “Okay, I take it back.”

“Yeah, and I am _not_ sleeping over there.” Sabine struggled upright, swaddled in her bedding, and tipped her head toward the furthest side of the tent.

Kanan sighed. “You won’t have to.” He shifted toward the back wall. “But Zeb, you sleep near the door.”

“Fine by me,” Zeb growled, lying down by the entrance. Ezra crawled in between Kanan and Hera; meanwhile, Hera rifled at least five backpacks before she found the cough medicine. She administered a dose to Sabine and then lay down next to her. All five of them spent the next few minutes shuffling over pillows and under blankets, shoving each other’s elbows and knees out of the way. Then there was silence, save for the sound of breathing. Loud breathing. That overlapped completely out of-of-sync and seemed calculated to drive a sentient being insane.

Hera shut her eyes and tried to focus on thinking out plans for the next day. Engine repairs would be first; then she’d have to check and reboot or fix the other systems that had been knocked offline with the power out.

The noise was impossible to ignore. 

She sat up abruptly and hunted in the dark for her earmuffs. She could tune the frequency of its comm to a blank channel and block the noise. Only she couldn’t find the earmuffs. She thought she’d put them near her pillow, but maybe she’d put them in a backpack instead, which would actually be safer. She reached for one backpack, unzipped it, and rifled inside. The she grabbed another and searched inside with no success. The zippers made shrill, whining noises, and the rustle of the canvas sounded like a couple of Loth-cats were fighting inside.

“Hera.” Kanan’s voice was flat. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for my earmuffs!”

“Look softer.”

“You’re welcome to help!”

No answer. Hera decided to find a flashlight first. Only—after another tussle with loud zippers and canvas and jumbled supplies—the flashlights were nowhere to be found. Vaguely, she remembered that a couple of backpacks were still outside. She could climb over Zeb to get to them, or she could ask him to search. Neither option sounded appealing. Though the noise of breathing was loud, at least everyone was quiet and in bed for the night. She shoved the backpacks against the tent wall and lay down.

***

Though the tent door was half-unzipped, and Hera could hear breezes rustling the grass outside, none of the air seemed to find its way inside. The air was hot and thick. Hera sat up abruptly and pulled off her boots and lay down. A few minutes later, she sat up again and stripped off her socks, accidentally kicking Ezra who was also pulling off his shoes. They both lay down at the same time.

Presently, Ezra turned over, jostling Hera and apparently Kanan, who grunted. Ezra muttered, “Sorry,” and lay still. But he kept squirming. Kanan ordered him to be still, and finally, Ezra replied with a petulant, “I’m hot!”

Kanan sat up, rifled around in the backpacks, and found a blanket lighter than the sleeping bag. Ezra crawled out of the bedding, shoved it to the side—right over Hera’s feet and legs—and lay down again. Then Hera sat up and shoved away the sleeping bag. But she was still hot—sweating, actually—and sat up and rolled up her pant legs as high as they would go and pushed her sleeves and lay down again. It didn’t help much; there were simply extra folds of fabric on her upper arms and legs. A cold shower sounded better than even sleep at the moment.

Then Sabine sighed heavily, sat up, and pushed both her blankets down. Another minute or so later, she dragged one blanket up again, huffing. When she shoved her blanket off again, Zeb half-rolled over and growled, “Cut it out, will you?”

“It’s hot in here!”

Zeb reached up and unzipped the tent flap completely. “There. Now quit complaining and let me get some sleep.”

“Ha, good luck with that.”

“Well, I might manage it if you would just shut up!”

“ _Everybody_ quiet,” Hera said.

“It’s going to be a long night,” Kanan muttered.

***

Hera gradually got used to the breathing noise. She had in fact begun to think she might drift off soon—when Ezra yelped “Ow!” and bolted upright.

“Ezra…” Kanan sighed.

“Something bit me!” When no one offered either condolences or suggestions, Ezra grumbled a bit and lay back down, shifting from side to side to get comfortable.

Then Sabine jerked upright, and Hera opened her eyes in time to see the girl smack her own arm. “Ow, something just bit _me_!”

Hera shut her eyes again. “Our guests are probably mosquitoes.” She heard a grunt from Kanan and another slap. She opened her eyes and sighed—and felt a prick on her neck and instinctively slapped it. “Unh!”

“Ow!” Ezra sat up again.

“Pipe down, both of you!” Zeb growled.

“When we’re being devoured alive?” Sabine demanded.

“Yeah, no problem!” Ezra slapped himself again and then flopped down, pulling the blanket over his head.

“ ‘Devoured?’ You’ve been bitten once!” Zeb retorted.

“Twice!” Ezra’s muffled voice returned.

Hera grimaced in Zeb’s direction; of course his fur protected him from the bugs.

“Yeah, and they’ll _keep biting_!” Sabine said. She swatted at the air with both hands. “Ugh, no one can sleep like this!”

“Well, I can shut the tent door, if you like,” Zeb said.

“No, _don’t_ ,” Kanan retorted. “We’ll suffocate in short order. Ezra, take that blanket off your head.”

“No.”

_“Ezra!”_

The boy sighed and shoved off the blanket. “Fine, but if I contact some terrible disease, it’s your fault.” He slapped himself again.

Sabine took to turning over every time she was bitten, which rustled her sleeping bag—loudly—and jostled Hera each time. Hera draped an arm over her eyes and resolved to ignore everything but fevers and blood. Only to jerk her arm down when her wrist was bitten, and she instinctively turned over, as if the motion would chase away the bugs. Ezra grunted or whispered “Ow!” every time he was bitten.

And he grunted frequently.

Zeb suddenly sat halfway up. “You’re right; nobody can sleep like this.” He zipped the tent door shut, leaving down the flap over the small netting window.

“Hey!” Kanan sat upright.

“Great, now the tent will smell like Lasat,” Ezra muttered.

“It’s that or the mosquitoes.” Zeb lay back down.

“Zeb!” Kanan called.

Zeb made no move. He controlled their fates, at least where the door was concerned, and unless they wanted to climb over him to reach the zipper, there was nothing they could do. Kanan groaned and lay down.

“See what I put up with?” Ezra said.

Kanan sighed. “That’s enough out of everyone.”

There were a few more grunts and slaps, startling Hera when she least expected to hear them, but the mosquitoes seemed to have been killed or trapped outside. The air grew even hotter and heavier, but now it seemed a reasonable price to pay for peace and quiet.

Which did not last. A low rumble began near the entrance of the tent. Hera, half-asleep and drugged with fatigue, started upright; either Chopper was flying the _Ghost_ away without them, or gutkurrs had somehow migrated onto Lothal. But the noise was steady, rhythmic—and very close by.

Of course. Zeb snored. Hera lay down and settled back into the blankets with a resigned sigh.

The minutes dragged by, punctuated by the unwavering snores. Hera could not drift off again, but nobody else made a movement or sound. Maybe only she was bothered by the noise. Ezra had probably learned to sleep through it, despite his complaints.

The snoring ended in a sudden grunt; at the same moment, Sabine hissed, “Cut it out, Zeb!”

“Ow, hey!” Zeb half-turned. “Keep your boots to yourself!”

“Well, _you_ quit snoring!”

“Everybody _quiet_.” Hera spoke firmly.

“Gonna be a long night.”

“I heard you the first time, dear.”

***

Sabine was a restless sleeper. A fact Hera had not discovered before. She was just drifting off again when something kicked her thigh. Hard. She sat up abruptly (and heard a suppressed sigh from Kanan) but saw in the faint moonlight that Sabine was fast asleep with one arm thrown over her head and the other tucked under her pillow. Hera shifted an inch or so away and settled back down.

For the next two hours, she lay wide awake, enduring Sabine’s acrobatics. The girl seemed as active asleep as she was awake, abruptly turning over or thrusting out an arm or a leg—all without waking, as the cough medicine had knocked her out. At one point, Zeb grumbled and shifted closer to the door, allowing Sabine more space. Which seemed encourage her to spread out and move around. At least one of them was getting some sleep, Hera thought ruefully. She inched away, but she couldn’t move far; Ezra was pinned pretty tightly between her and Kanan, and she didn’t want to squash him. Though oddly enough, Ezra had made no complaint about the situation, save squirming into a more comfortable position every now and then.

Then Zeb fell asleep again. It was obvious—or rather, audible—the moment he dropped off. The tent filled with the sound of snoring. Kanan groaned. Ezra managed to tug his pillow over his head, only to shove it away moments later, gasping. Hera lay still—and rigid—because wrestling with the ship’s machinery would be more relaxing than this. At least she would be fixing the problem. She was on the point of announcing this to Kanan—but after a particularly loud snore filled the cramped space, she decided that her co-pilot had suffered enough in the last five minutes if no other time during the day.

On the plus side, she couldn’t hear the out-of-sync breathing anymore.

***

She dozed on and off during the next couple of hours. She gradually got used to Zeb’s snoring—at least it was consistent—but Kanan abruptly had a sneezing fit that startled her awake.

Her drowsiness faded completely after that, and she found herself staring up at the dark ceiling and mentally reviewing everything else that needed fixing aboard her ship. There was a good chance that Chopper hadn’t done single repair that she’d ordered.

Then Zeb’s snoring changed note. She almost hoped he was waking up—but the cacophony resumed. Come to think of it, the noise seemed to be vibrating in the ground beneath them…or maybe coming from two places at once. She wrinkled her brow.

Kanan’s voice startled her, though his tone was flat. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

“Zeb snoring?” Hera returned. “It definitely is.”

“No, I mean…” Kanan struggled upright, prompting an annoyed grunt from Ezra. “Listen.”

Hera pushed herself up on one elbow and listened. Zeb snored again. “It’s just Zeb. Or still Zeb, actually,” she muttered. She lay back down. “Go to sleep.”

But Kanan remained sitting upright. After a minute, the ground vibrated again—and the snoring definitely came from two places. No, she was so tired she was imagining things.

She didn’t imagine the flash of lightening that brightened the tent, however, or the crash of thunder over the plains. Ezra shot upright. “Uh, Kanan?”

Kanan leaned as far toward the front of the tent as he could manage. “Zeb, buddy, wake up!”

Zeb didn’t move (though he kept snoring). Hera sat up, reached over Sabine, and shoved his shoulder. “Zeb!”

With a snort and a final, rattling snore, he was awake and thoroughly grumpy. “Just got to sleep in this sack,” he growled, “what is it now?”

“You’ve been asleep for a solid three hours, actually,” Kanan returned. “Close up the tent; there’s a storm coming.”

“Like as not, it was just my snoring,” Zeb grumbled and made no move to obey the orders. Hera could almost feel Kanan fuming.

Lightening flickered again, and thunder crashed overhead. Ezra flinched, and Zeb struggled upright. “Okay, that wasn’t me.” He wrestled with the zipper and got the flap fastened—just as thunder rolled overhead and rain poured down like a waterfall, rattling on the canvas roof.

Zeb lay back down, muttering. Kanan reached for a water canteen and took a drink before also settling down. Hera shut her eyes; the patter of rain was somewhat soothing.

Presently, she felt Ezra shivering at her side. She opened her eyes and half-turned. “Are you cold?”

“No.”

“Then what is it?”

Thunder drowned out whatever he might have tried to say. When the noise faded, his voice was muffled. “I…uh…don’t like storms.”

“Oh.” Hera turned on her side and lay a hand on his shoulder. Ezra relaxed a bit---and Sabine rolled into the space Hera had just vacated and ended up firmly lodged against her back. The movement jostled her and Ezra both. Hera managed to keep her mouth shut for all of three seconds and then said drily, “Let me know if you need help getting unstuck in the morning.”

Ezra snickered. Then he said quietly, “I don’t mind.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah.” A pause. “It…makes me feel safe.”

Hera smiled in the dark and squeezed his shoulder.

***

The storm faded after an hour or so, but Zeb had fallen asleep again (and his snoring resumed). And Hera, pinned firmly in between Ezra and Sabine, couldn’t move without jostling either of them. Even if she managed to move without waking them, Sabine would probably just roll into her spot, and she wouldn’t be able to get it back.

Ezra sat up suddenly. Hera thought he’d been bitten by a stray mosquito, when he mumbled something she couldn’t make out.

“What was that?” she asked softly.

“ ‘S never a good idea—or maybe…last time they went in the morning. Hmm. Okay.” And with that, he lay back down.

“Ezra?” Her previous concerns forgotten, Hera sat up fully and bent over him. “Are you all right?”

No answer.

“Ezra?”

He wasn’t actually awake. “Okay…” She started to lay down—and almost landed on Sabine, who had indeed rolled into her spot. Hera glared at nothing in the darkness of the tent, and then carefully reached over Ezra to see if there was any extra space between him and Kanan. There was, and she carefully climbed around Ezra and settled between them—leaving her blanket behind. She’d give herself heatstroke if she kept it on.

Ezra mumbled again, random words and half-words that made no sense. Hera, not knowing what else to do, patted his shoulder and whispered, “Shh.”

It quieted him for a few minutes. But suddenly, he drew a deep breath, sat up, and remained sitting up for a minute or so. Then he clumsily crawled over her and flopped down between her and Kanan—almost on top of them thanks to the lack of space. Hera grunted and shifted back a few inches before bumping into Sabine. Ezra squirmed into a more comfortable position and lay still.

A few minutes later, she was started by his voice again, muttering, “Not really—‘s funny more ‘an…mmm—maybe so.” Incomprehensible, but cheerful-sounding.

Hera patted his shoulder again. “Shh.”

This became a necessary habit through the rest of the night.

***

Hera finally managed to sleep a little. But she woke (as usual) right before sunrise. She watched the light change from deep blue to deep grey, and she could make out the faces of her crew. The kids were fast asleep. And—there were her earmuffs, lying on the ground near her pillow, closer to Ezra’s pillow than hers. She grimaced at her offending accessories.

Kanan groaned, stirred, and sat up. When she glanced at him, he ran a hand through his hair. “Well, you look as bad as I feel.”

“Good morning to you too, dear.” She gave him a wry grin and pushed herself upright. “And you don’t look any better.”

Kanan chuckled drily. “Did you get any rest?”

“Your Padawan talks in his sleep.”

Kanan blinked. “Okay, but that doesn’t answer—”

“Yes, it does.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Now Hera chuckled and shook her head. Kanan carefully disentangled himself from the sleeping bags, somehow managing not to jostle Ezra. “What do you say we get out of here?”

“If we can”—Hera glanced at the hulk of Zeb in front of the door. She grabbed her earmuffs, socks, and boots and quickly put them on; then she gingerly climbed over Ezra and Sabine and reached over Zeb and managed to unzip the tent door. It was easier than she’d anticipated; and she ruefully realized (as she climbed outside and Kanan followed) that they could have spared themselves a good deal of discomfort last night.

The morning air was fresh and cool, and they stood for a moment watching the sunrise. Then Hera dug through the remaining backpacks and found the flashlights, and she and Kanan returned to the _Ghost_. Chopper let them in—after Hera called his comm twice and gave firm orders—and they hurried inside. It was like walking into a wet greenhouse. Hera switched on her flashlight and hurried to the cockpit. “Chopper, did you fix anything on board last night?”

Chopper grumbled and whomped and said that he couldn’t possible do that with the power off; he wasn’t fresh off the assembly line at the top of his game—

“You could have run the backup engine and worked from there,” Hera sighed.

Chopper buzzed and rolled away, offering his uncensored opinion of the whole last rotation.

“Yeah, I know, buddy. Me too,” Hera muttered. She shone her flashlight around the cockpit—and realized Kanan hadn’t followed her. After a bit of searching, she discovered him in the kitchen, glaring at the dark and silent caf machine.

“Power’s out, love.” Hera grinned a little and shone her flashlight in his face. “Remember?”

“Oh, really?” he grumbled, rubbing the back of his neck.

She whacked his shoulder and said, “Well, then, let’s get to work. I’ve figured out what the problems are. All we need to do is fix them.”

“Lead on, my captain.”

***

They set to work with alacrity, partly because of the need for repairs—and partly because without caf, they would both have massive headaches in short order. They divided the work between them, Hera working in the upper ducts and Kanan working in the lower ones. The job went more quickly than Hera had anticipated, maybe because there were no interruptions. Or maybe because a few hours of sleep had done her more good than she’d counted on. (Not that she’d admit Kanan had been right.)

They were both sweating and streaked with dirt and grease when they met in the cockpit. Kanan rubbed his sleeve across his forehead. “You think it’ll work now.”

“Let’s find out.” She set down her toolbox, hurried to the dashboard, and punched buttons and flipped a few switches. The machinery whirred and powered up, running smoothly. The lights flickered on and stayed bright.

Hera blinked rapidly in the sudden light and then hurried to check the panels and diagnostic screen. “Yep, everything’s working well. Check those other screens”—gesturing with her elbow to another console.

Kanan did so. “Seems like everything’s running smoothly for a change.”

“Finally,” Hera muttered, and then added in a louder tone, “Don’t jinx it, love.”

By unspoken agreement, they headed straight to the kitchen and switched on the caf machine and brewed two cups. They downed these in silence and approximately 30 seconds’ time; then they brewed a second cup for each of them. The long night suddenly caught up with Hera, and she slid down to the floor to finish her drink. Kanan sat down next to her.

“You think we ought to lay low for a while?” he said at last.

She began to answer, checked herself, and thought through the situation. “I don’t know. If the Empire hasn’t traced that data theft to us yet, I think we’re safe.”

“Actually, I was thinking we’d park somewhere isolated and sleep for the next two rotations.”

“Oh. Really?”

He gave a wry grin. “Tell me that doesn’t sound good right now.”

“No, it does.” She took a slow sip of caf. “All depends on Fulcrum’s missions, though.”

“Right.” A pause. “I guess you could always say we took a hit and need some time to recover.”

“ ‘Took a hit’?” She looked at him and raised and eyebrow. “Seriously, Kanan?”

“Why not?” He drained the rest of his caf and set the cup on the floor. “The mission was the only thing that went off well. The _Ghost_ sustained repeated damage. The cooling system was a casualty.”

“In the battle of bad luck and inferior planning?” Hera asked drily.

Kanan laughed and shook his head. “Okay, okay, it’s a weak excuse.”

Hera laughed too. She heard light footsteps coming down the corridor. “Heads up. We’ve got incoming.”

A moment later, Ezra appeared in the doorway, rubbing his eyes. He stopped short when he saw them. “Uh, what are you two doing on the floor?”

Kanan smirked at Hera. “Well, the view’s pretty good.”

“Whaaa…?”

Hera climbed to her feet. “If you slept as badly as we did, then you’re welcome to judge. Are the others awake?”

“I think I woke Zeb up climbing over him,” Ezra said.

“Well, go finish the job, and wake Sabine up as well.” At Ezra’s alarmed look, Hera said, “Tell them it’s my orders.” She looked over her shoulder at Kanan as he also got to his feet. “We need to dismantle the tent and bring all the supplies inside. Then we’re heading to a new spot, and we’ll rest there for a while. And we can all get a good long sleep.”

“Long as we want?” Ezra asked.

“Two whole rotations, if you feel like it,” Hera smiled with a glance at Kanan, and Kanan laughed as Ezra saluted and ran off.


End file.
